# Talk:Zenzizenzizenzic

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Field: History of mathematics
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## Spelling

I corrected the assertion about Recorde's spelling; a scan of the relevant page in the original book is on the right. -- Dominus 01:12, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

## Zenzizenzizenzic

The article currently claims that Zenzizenzizenzic is the notation, but it's not, it's a word that is one example of the notation. A notation is how to do all the different ways that you can write things. And that's the problem with the article- it's constrained by the title which locks it into being about the word; it's a dictionary article.- Wolfkeeper 16:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Can you rewrite "A notation is how to do all the different ways that you can write things." in a way that makes more sense, please? I have no idea what you're trying to say. And what is a word, anyway, but a notation for a thing? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:32, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
A notation is a scheme for expressing things, an example written in a particular a notation is called a term.- Wolfkeeper 19:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
If we say an alphabetic sentence is a notation, then 'I ate the crab apple.' is a term in that notation. A notation is a way of writing things down, not something you've written in it. Zenzizenzizenzic is a term not a notation.- Wolfkeeper 19:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
It's a way of writing down eighth powers. In that sense it's not dissimilar to mathematical notations still in use like $\scriptstyle\log x$, which still can be spelled out as "the logarithm of x"; one could imagine a modernized version of the zenzizenzizenzic notation in which we write $\scriptstyle{\mathop{\mathrm{zzz}}}\, x$ for the eighth power of x, if only we didn't have much better alternative notations. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
OK, I can see what you mean, but that seems to be your OR (I don't mean that in a bad sense, but I don't think that notations are normally considered hierarchical, and the guy clearly did invent a general notation in the image). Actually, that is a thought, we could merge this with mathematical notation; mathematical notation is not very big.- Wolfkeeper 20:23, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
I think it would be an unduly large proportion of the mathematical notation article: the history of mathematical notation is long and large and this particular notation is not a very important part of it. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:38, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
It's really only a couple of paragraphs, and I think we could cut it down to a paragraph and an image.- Wolfkeeper 20:41, 19 March 2010 (UTC)
And the guy is notable for inventing the equality operator, probably in the same publication.- Wolfkeeper 20:46, 19 March 2010 (UTC)